How I Passed the Thermal / Fluid PE exam

Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum

Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Hello everybody. I am starting my preparation for the exam and I'm having a hard time trying to find the practice exams mentioned. The one I found is: https://ppi2pass.com/ncees-pe-mechanical-engineering-thermal-and-fluids-systems-practice-exam-ncpemt2.html

Would that suffice or should I dig deeper and find the ones previously mentioned?

Thanks.

JE
That is the latest version of the NCEES practice exam.  It has be revised to the current specs.  You should checkout the price of this exam on the NCEES website. I'm not sure how much ppi2pass charges for shipping, but my guess is you can get it for a better price directly through NCEES.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the other NCEES practice exams you will have to find from 3rd party (ebay, amazon, friends, folks here, etc.).  I believe the other available copies are the 2001, 2008, and 2011 versions.  Given how the new specs do not have a "breadth" section the past practice exams aren't as beneficial as in the past IMO.  They are still valuable, but many of the practice problems will likely not be applicable.  However, I have both the 2011 and the newest version and at a first glance it appears many of the questions are the same.

 
Dr. Tom gives a comparison of the 2011 vs 2016 practice exam.

https://youtu.be/-mLfmjcovlc

Basically 25 questions from 2011 practice morning are on 2016 TFS practice morning. There are 4 problems dropped from 2011 and Dr. Tom doesn't indicate what area they are in (lets assume 1-2 problems are applicable to the TFS exam). On the afternoon session 27 of the 2011 questions are carried over into the 2016 practice exam. Therefore there are only 13-15 questions on the 2011 practice exam that may be beneficial for the 2017 TFS exam. It looks like you can find the 2011 practice exam for $50-60ish online, but I guess its up to each individual if it's worth spending $4-$5 per problem?

 
That is the latest version of the NCEES practice exam.  It has be revised to the current specs.  You should checkout the price of this exam on the NCEES website. I'm not sure how much ppi2pass charges for shipping, but my guess is you can get it for a better price directly through NCEES.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the other NCEES practice exams you will have to find from 3rd party (ebay, amazon, friends, folks here, etc.).  I believe the other available copies are the 2001, 2008, and 2011 versions.  Given how the new specs do not have a "breadth" section the past practice exams aren't as beneficial as in the past IMO.  They are still valuable, but many of the practice problems will likely not be applicable.  However, I have both the 2011 and the newest version and at a first glance it appears many of the questions are the same.
Nevill24, thanks for your response!!

 
Just updated your spreadsheet. 

MERM was my main source of material. The PPI Thermal Fluids Book they say helped for this exam was not very helpful... stick with the MERM. 

NCEES 2016 Test, Engineering Pro Guide Sample Test for TF. 6MS TF. MERM problems from relevant chapters (skipped the 1 hour). 

Passed on my 4th attempt. I am an EE who took the ME TF. My success this time was nothing but problems from day 1 of studying...do them and struggle...get better and bored... find more problems... go back to the "bored" problems and see if you still remember to do those. Rinse and repeat. 

 
After getting the news that I passed I would first like to thank everyone for their help on these forums.  It was extremely beneficial to get input from so many that have passed the exam. Second I figured it would only be fair to share my experience with the exam (especially given the new specs).   

First a little background info about myself. I have 6 years of experience in the power generation industry working for a large electric utility company. I have a MS in ME and finished only a year ago so I was not too far removed from the grind of exam studying.  I think these two factors, not having any children (or other living commitments), and a lot of spare time really played in my favor. The reason I mention all this is I felt like I was in a very good position in preparing for this exam with minimal distractions; Not everyone is in this same situation and one study method may not work for all.

At the beginning of my study I set up a study schedule in excel to help track and motivate me to study.   Attached is the actual study schedule I used.  I did not do a good job of updating what topics I studied on each day, but the hours logged are very accurate.  I started 13 weeks in advance of the test date and tried to set aside like 1-2hrs Mon-Thurs, then 3-4 hrs Fri-Sun.  I got pretty lazy and didn’t stick to this completely, but I ended up with about 165 hours of study.  Overall I felt I may have over studied, but reading online it sounded like the avg study time was around 200 hrs which was my original goal.  The stuff I studied I knew very well unfortunately there was a good bit of stuff on the exam that caught me off guard that I unfortunately did not study for.

References:

  1. MERM – this was by far the most used reference in my study and on exam day.  I got the 12th edition as it was about $150 cheaper, from what I read not much different than 13th, and the engineering forums had a lot more resources available for the 12th edition.  During my studying I made sure I was very comfortable with how to navigate through the MERM.  I also used the “shaggy” method we talked about with tabbing.  Attached are some photos showing you how I did it.  The side tabs are each chapter related to the exam including chapter numbers which made it easier to flip through the book if I had to reference the table of contents or index.   I would use the specs provided by NCEES (attached but may change for OCT 17) to determine what chapters need to be tabbed.  The bottom tabs I put the key appendices, tables, charts, constants, etc that I used a good bit during studying.  The top tabs I put the key equations and concepts that I used a lot during my studying.  The example I show how the color coding works where you flip to a certain chapter and you see at the top the associated concepts/equations in that chapter.  By the end of my studies I really just needed the chapters and tables/charts tabbed as I was pretty familiar with where each concept was located in each chapter.
  2. NCEES Practice exam – you can get the 2016 version directly from NCEES.  They also have a 2001, 2008, and 2011 version.  A lot of the problems are recycled on each practice exam.  I borrowed a coworkers 2011 version and it had about 15 problems on it that were applicable to thermal fluids that was not on 2016.  If you can find someone that took the exam prior to April 17 you may be able to get the old copies.   If not ebay or amazon may have them.
  3. http://www.engproguides.com/  - The owner gave me a free copy of the “Thermal & Fluids Technical Study Guide” and later in my studies I bought his “Thermal & Fluids April 2017 Full Exam”.  I thought the study guide was good for kick starting the study as it did a good job of explaining the basics and had easy practice problems to get myself familiar with many of the concepts I hadn’t used in years.  The study guide did have a lot of errors in it.  I emailed these errors to the owner and hopefully he has updated the study guide by now.  The exam was similar to the NCEES practice exam and there were a couple problems included that were nearly identical to the actual exam.  Both the study guide and exam are PDFs.
  4. Prep Course – I didn’t actually do a prep course, but I got the material for School of PE.  I did all their practice problems which was beneficial.  I’ve heard mixed reviews about School of PE which seemed to be dependent on what lecturer you get for the course.   I have heard good things about http://drtomsclassroom.com/ which I considered taking, but decided not to.  He does have free videos on his website that discuss format of exam, things to look out for, etc. that I watched.
  5. Steam Tables: Thermodynamic Properties of Water Including Vapor, Liquid, and Solid Phases – the steam tables in the MERM aren’t great so I bought this steam tables book which was a godsend. If you can find it in metric I would get that as well.
  6. http://www.nist.gov/srd/upload/NISTIR5078.htm  - I used these steam tables for metric since I couldn’t find a good metric book for them.  Printed off and put in a 3-ring binder
  7. Engineering Unit Conversions – This book was helpful in quickly converting units. I mostly used the front cover of the MERM, but I’d say without this book there were a couple problems that I probably would have gotten wrong.
  8. FE Reference manual – this is free on the NCEES website.  I downloaded the pdf and printed off the sections that were applicable to the exam.  I included this in the 3-ring binder with the metric steam tables.  Some people make their own cheat sheet of equations or buy a equation reference book.  I thought the FE reference manual was adequate for this though.   
  9.  Six-Minute Solutions  – A PPI resource you can also buy directly from the publisher.  I also got this from a coworker.  This includes like 80-90 practice problems and overall has gotten pretty mixed reviews.  I personally would not buy this with money out of my pocket.  About 1/2-2/3 of the problems are garbage and this exam is generally more difficult than the real exam.  A lot of the problem requires you to use references and equations that are not realistic to have available for the exam.  I just used judgment on which problems seemed reasonable and spent time practicing them.
  10. Thermal and Fluids Systems Reference Manual for the Mechanical PE Exam (METS) – another PPI resource you can buy direction from the publisher.  The bulk of this book didn’t add much value to my list of references.  The literature was essentially the MERM rewritten and a lot of the derivations for the equations were given which isn’t any value for this exam.   However, the 88 practice problems included were decent especially for the cycle problems.  They were more time consuming and probably more difficult in general compared to the actual exam, but I felt they helped me prepare.
  11. Created a cheat sheet table of contents – See attached.  I got this from engineerboards.com (credit to Randy Villeneuve) and modified it to my liking.  This helped me early on, but once I got familiar with the MERM I didn’t use it much.   I put it in the 3-ring binder with my other materials.  I don’t think I ever used it during the exam though.  This is for the 12th edition of the MERM I am assuming you have 13th edition so it may not be of much value.
  12. www.coolerado.com/pdfs/Psychrmtrcs/0000Psych11x17US_SI.pdf  Printed off 11x17 in color and included in my 3-ring binder.
  13. Made a section in my 3-ring binder that included practice problems that I struggled with.  Ended up not using in the exam though.
  14. oughtredco – did their free TFS problems.  Only about half of the problems were useful.  Would probably only do these problems if you have exhausted all other resources and just looking for more practice.  Given all the errors though I wouldn’t be too confident in this resource though.
  15. Engineerboards.com – used the forums to research what other people are doing, to ask questions, etc.


Looking back what would I have done differently…

  1. I’d skim through the MERM just to see what chapters are in there, what are in the appendices, etc.  And tab the key chapters as I did in my book.
  2. I would start off with the engproguides and go through the study guide.  Skim through the areas that I felt weak in and do all the practice problems in the study guide
  3. Get practice problems from a prep course and work all of those if possible.
  4. If you get the six-minute solutions I would go through it at this point, but probably wouldn’t do every problem.  Like I mentioned above only about half of them are of value.  A good bit aren’t applicable to the actual exam and are pretty obscure.
  5. Go through each section of the MERM that is applicable to the exam (skim through to get familiar with each section – probably wouldn’t read through the material) and do the practice problems in the book.  If these are too difficult don’t sweat it as these problems are generally more difficult than what will be on the exam.
  6. Find and do some practice problems on the “supportive knowledge” (pipe system analysis, joints, etc).  I didn’t practice these areas much as the material I have pretty much just covered thermal and fluids.   Not sure a good source for these problems.  At least read through the MERM and do the practice problems for these sections.  I didn’t and I think it came back to bite me on the exam.
  7. Complete the NCEES practice exam under timed conditions.  I would do a mock test and set aside a weekend to do a 4 hr morning and 4 hr afternoon.  Grade and see how well I did.  If I couldn’t go through each session in 4 hours I would just go back and do those problems later.  See what areas you are weak in and what you need to study more.  You should find that the NCEES material is much easier than the PPI stuff.  From reading online some people like to do the mock test from the very beginning, some like to not even do the mock test and just work the problems as they go, etc.  Really just personal preference, but I feel getting some studying in and then doing the practice exam timed under exam like conditions helped.  Part of the exam day is the mental fatigue of sitting and doing problems for up to 8 hrs in a day.  I think the mock test helped in that aspect.
  8. At this point you should be pretty familiar with the MERM and what concepts are reoccurring.  I would begin to tab the top and bottom of the book with the key concepts, tables, etc.  You could of course do this sooner in the study process.
  9. I would then go through the METS and do all practice problems and focus on your weak areas.
  10. At this point depending on how much time is left I would recycle through all the material above.  I would leave the engproguides practice exam as a final mock test and do that maybe a couple weeks before the exam to gauge where you are at.  Then use the last week or so going over areas you need improvement on and focus on the NCEES practice exam as it resembles the actual exam best out of all practice material.  I think it’s worth noting the engproguides practice exam was the second best at mimicking the actual exam out of the material I utilized.
There may be other good material available that I am not aware of.  I also had the PPI “Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam”, but towards the end of my studies I was really losing motivation and never went through this book.   I read online that it is like the six-minute solutions in that it is more difficult than the real exam and may cover topics that aren’t of much value.  This was originally written for a coworker so the wording may sound weird for a forum posting.  Sorry this was a lot, hopefully it provides some value and good luck!

Tabbing Method1.jpg

View attachment PE Exam Schedule Latest..xlsx

View attachment MERM Reference Guide R1.docx

 
Thank you Nevill24 for the nod and for pointing out the errors.  I have made your changes and I have also made more fixes from other reviews.  Congratulations on passing!

 
Thanks Justin. My wording may have been poor with regards to the engproguide in my post. Just so others know most of the errors were grammatical/administrative type errors so don't let that shy you away and Justin was very responsive to my emails. Highly recommend future test takers pick up engproguide material. It's great material especially for the cost.

 
So I took the April 2017 Mechanical - HVAC PE and Passed on my first try!

The information in this thread was crucial and following it as best as you can will definitely lead to your success on the exam!

My advice would be to start out with the Engineering Pro guide by Justin Kuawale. - For the price the study guide and exam are a steal. It does have some typos but they are obvious and shouldn't affect your studies that much.

I also purchased School of PE - Mechanical and it was a waste of time.. sorry. First their classes start about a month before the exam and the last class ends merely a week before the exam (This gives you very little time review topics you may be struggling with). Also there material reminds me of the "C.Y.A. Method" of giving an over abundant amount of information and problems to cover every topic so that technically they gave you everything you need.. rather than tailoring the material and focusing on what is important. And the last straw for me was that on of their lecturers mentioned that you shouldn't expect to pass the PE on your first try.. And they was right if you only used their material. Enough about SOPE.

What you need to do to pass:

1. Read the Eng Pro Guide and do all of the problems. (It will help get your mind refreshed on the topics you need to cover) I hole punched the guide, divided it into color coded sections and put it in a 4 inch binder. And as I found other important materials and problems from other study guides, I made a copy and inserted it into the appropriate sections. So by the end I had a solid binder with pretty much everything I needed for the exam. I also noted on the guide next to the equations the pg #s that correlated to the MERM & ASHRAE Books.

2. Six Minute Solutions -  Do this book at least 4 -5 times. The first time you will reconsider a lot of things in life and why you chose to take the exam..lol. But after the 2 or 3rd time you'll be fine. And every time you take the exam you will learn something new that you didn't realize in the previous go-rounds. I didn't time myself until the last week. (The truth is, if you take the time to fully understand the material, you will be able to move through the problems quicker, so don't frustrate yourself with timing.. it will eventually come) Focus on learning the material and where to find it. My advise have the MERM and ASHRAE books next to you and tab the pages with the equations you need as you go through each problem. What I found helpful was also noting next to the equations the Problem # that I needed it for.

3. Buy all of the NCEES Practice Exams - 2016, 2008, 2001. And practice practice practice! The 2001 test is hard to find but there are some floating around on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182612444442?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 

What you will realize is that after doing these exams at least one time during the first few weeks of your studies, when you review other prep materials you will have a better inclination towards whether or not NCEES would test you on it. Meaning some sample problems are just too in depth and by review the NCEES test first you will have a better understanding on whether you should spend time review the problem or passing on it.

4. If you have the time take the Sample PE Exam by PPI. It is slightly harder but your focus is to understand the material as thorough as you can. I comb through each problem one time and took as much time as I needed to understand the problem completely.(1hr a problem at first)

So overall.. the key is to practice as many problems as you can.. I believe I reviewed close to 400 - 500 problems.  Also incorporate the ASHRAE books into your reference materials very early on, so that you are very familiar with navigating through it..  it does have some really good information and if you know the history between Lindeburg and NCEES you may want to focus on using ASHRAE, as the authors of the exam make it a point to test on material that Lindeburg sometimes has very little coverage on. I used the ASHRAE books for many of the Thumb Search questions.

I also printed and bounded the MERM Index, ASHRAE Index and Psychro Charts together for quick recall. Time is crucial so it is important to be efficient!

Good Luck on your studies! And you will be a PE! ..Remember its not a matter of if.. its just when.

 
So I took the April 2017 Mechanical - HVAC PE and Passed on my first try!

The information in this thread was crucial and following it as best as you can will definitely lead to your success on the exam!

My advice would be to start out with the Engineering Pro guide by Justin Kuawale. - For the price the study guide and exam are a steal. It does have some typos but they are obvious and shouldn't affect your studies that much.

I also purchased School of PE - Mechanical and it was a waste of time.. sorry. First their classes start about a month before the exam and the last class ends merely a week before the exam (This gives you very little time review topics you may be struggling with). Also there material reminds me of the "C.Y.A. Method" of giving an over abundant amount of information and problems to cover every topic so that technically they gave you everything you need.. rather than tailoring the material and focusing on what is important. And the last straw for me was that on of their lecturers mentioned that you shouldn't expect to pass the PE on your first try.. And they was right if you only used their material. Enough about SOPE.

What you need to do to pass:

1. Read the Eng Pro Guide and do all of the problems. (It will help get your mind refreshed on the topics you need to cover) I hole punched the guide, divided it into color coded sections and put it in a 4 inch binder. And as I found other important materials and problems from other study guides, I made a copy and inserted it into the appropriate sections. So by the end I had a solid binder with pretty much everything I needed for the exam. I also noted on the guide next to the equations the pg #s that correlated to the MERM & ASHRAE Books.

2. Six Minute Solutions -  Do this book at least 4 -5 times. The first time you will reconsider a lot of things in life and why you chose to take the exam..lol. But after the 2 or 3rd time you'll be fine. And every time you take the exam you will learn something new that you didn't realize in the previous go-rounds. I didn't time myself until the last week. (The truth is, if you take the time to fully understand the material, you will be able to move through the problems quicker, so don't frustrate yourself with timing.. it will eventually come) Focus on learning the material and where to find it. My advise have the MERM and ASHRAE books next to you and tab the pages with the equations you need as you go through each problem. What I found helpful was also noting next to the equations the Problem # that I needed it for.

3. Buy all of the NCEES Practice Exams - 2016, 2008, 2001. And practice practice practice! The 2001 test is hard to find but there are some floating around on ebay. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XNCEES+PE+Mechanical+Practice+Exam.TRS0&_nkw=NCEES+PE+Mechanical+Practice+Exam&_sacat=0

What you will realize is that after doing these exams at least one time during the first few weeks of your studies, when you review other prep materials you will have a better inclination towards whether or not NCEES would test you on it. Meaning some sample problems are just too in depth and by review the NCEES test first you will have a better understanding on whether you should spend time review the problem or passing on it.

4. If you have the time take the Sample PE Exam by PPI. It is slightly harder but your focus is to understand the material as thorough as you can. I comb through each problem one time and took as much time as I needed to understand the problem completely.(1hr a problem at first)

So overall.. the key is to practice as many problems as you can.. I believe I reviewed close to 400 - 500 problems.  Also incorporate the ASHRAE books into your reference materials very early on, so that you are very familiar with navigating through it..  it does have some really good information and if you know the history between Lindeburg and NCEES you may want to focus on using ASHRAE, as the authors of the exam make it a point to test on material that Lindeburg sometimes has very little coverage on. I used the ASHRAE books for many of the Thumb Search questions.

I also printed and bounded the MERM Index, ASHRAE Index and Psychro Charts together for quick recall. Time is crucial so it is important to be efficient!

Good Luck on your studies! And you will be a PE! ..Remember its not a matter of if.. its just when.

 
Hi all,

I just took the October 2017 TFS PE exam and wanted to say thank you to all before me who shared your experiences.  Now that I’ve taken the exam, I can say that your advice was critical in allowing me to prepare adequately for the exam.  I feel I did well enough on the exam that I passed, and I have all of you to thank for it.  So, thank you.

To pay it forward to future examinees, I’d like to mention a couple of things that I found helpful in my preparations:

1. Ramnares’ (the OP to this topic) advice is gold.  Follow Ramnares’ advice and set a schedule for your studying (start early!), and that should set you up to have a great shot at passing the PE exam.

2. Books that I used and found extremely helpful were: 

a. MERM (13th Ed) – Must have.

b. Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam (13th Ed) – Very good practice problems.

c. Engineering Unit Conversions (4th Ed) – This is absolutely necessary for the PE exam.  Definitely worth the money.  Buy this early and use throughout your studying.

d. Mechanical PE Practice Examination (3rd Ed)

e. NCEES’ PE Mechanical: Thermal and Fluids Systems Practice Exam

3. I also briefly used the TFS Six-Minute Solutions book, but I found this book not helpful because (1) the solutions often required major assumptions that were omitted from the problem statements, (2) the solutions were not written well enough to learn fundamentals from, and (3) the solutions often required much, much more time than six minutes.

4. Doing a few things at the start will ensure your studying is efficient and that you’re familiar with how things will be on exam day.  For me, these were the following:

a. Set up a 4 foot wide by 3 foot deep section on a table and do all of your practice problems within this space, including the references that you are using.  Place any extra materials on the floor beside you in a bin or crate.

b. Tab your MERM like described in previous posts (i.e., the Shaggy tabbing method).  I tabbed the first page of each chapter and wrote the chapter number and a shortened title (e.g., for Chapter 17, I wrote “17” and “Fluid Dynamics” on the tab).

c. Copy the MERM Appendix and put it in its own binder.

d. Copy the MERM Index and put it in its own binder (the PDF version of the MERM Index is available for free here:

https://ppi2pass.com/thermal-and-fluids-systems-reference-manual-for-the-mechanical-pe-exam-index-metsidx.html

e. Printout steam tables and psychrometric charts (US and SI at sea level) and place them in a third binder.

5. Use the “Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam (13th Ed)” as your primary source of practice problems.  The problems are generally a bit harder/longer than you’ll see on the PE exam, but the solutions will teach you the fundamentals (very important!) and also get you very well acquainted with how to quickly find information in the MERM (extremely important!).  To help you identify which sections to study, the MERM publisher PPI has cross-referenced the NCEES Exam Specs with the MERM Chapters in a free “study schedule” available here:

https://ppi2pass.com/mechanical-pe-thermal-and-fluid-systems-study-schedule-metfss.html

My recommendation is to study first the practice problems that are associated with the chapters that relate to the most points from the NCEES Exam Specs.  Keep doing passes through the practice problems until you’re able to do them efficiently.

6. While studying, use a highlighter to highlight each equation, table, figure, and conversion factor that you use from the MERM or your units conversion book.  This will make it easier for you to identify later on where you should add additional tabs to the MERM or your units conversion book.  Also, only write notes with pen the the MERM.  Writing with pencil could get you accused of cheating on exam day.

7. Track your time studying, and be honest with the time you’re recording (i.e., don’t count time spent browsing your phone when you inevitably get distracted).

8. About a month out from the exam (even earlier is better), begin doing timed practice exams.  Your goal should be to be able to pass the full “Mechanical PE Practice Examination (3rd Ed)” under exam time limits.  If you’re like me, you’ll fail miserably on your first time running through this practice exam, which will motivate you to study a lot more.  Use the “Mechanical PE Practice Examination (3rd Ed)” as the benchmark for whether you’re ready for the exam.

9. Periodically do practice exams with the “NCEES’ PE Mechanical: Thermal and Fluids Systems Practice Exam”.  This will get you familiar with the exam format.  This exam is easier than the “Mechanical PE Practice Examination (3rd Ed)” practice exam.  In my experience, the actual PE exam was halfway between those two practice exams in terms of difficulty.

10. You should aim to have done each practice exam several times over, under timed conditions each time, before the actual exam roles around.

11. My mistakes during preparation:

a. Don’t spend time reading the MERM cover to cover.  I did and absolutely forgot everything before I started doing practice problems.  If you want, quickly skim through the MERM initially.  The most effective way to read the MERM is to read a single chapter and then work its associated practice problems.

b. Don’t use the six-minute solutions book if you’re taking the TFS exam.  It is an ineffective way to study.

c. Set a study schedule early on and stick to it.

12: I studied 330 hours in total.  I had to relearn everything because my jobs after college did not have me using any of the fundamentals covered by the PE exam.  330 hours was enough studying to allow me to confidently answer 95% of the questions on the actual PE exam with hardly any time to spare.  I’m pretty sure I passed, but I’ll have to wait for the exam results to know for sure.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
THANK YOU all so much for your help!  I just found out I passed TFS PE exam taken on October 27, 2017.  To give back and in case it might help anyone else in the future, I'm writing up here what I did in comments to the original post by Ramnares, P.E.

Having just received the good news that I've passed the PE exam, it's only fair for me to pass along the knowledge, tips, advice that I've used that ultimately proved successful. I've been a lurker on the board for a few years now and gathered a lot of information before I decided to take the exam.I'm not saying that my approach is correct for everyone. Others have passed using different approaches and methods. I started studying for the October exam in the spring and got burnt out. I started back seriously studying (every day) at the beginning of July.

I started studying for the April exam, only to postpone it and then seriously study after July 4th holiday for the October exam. I spent lots of time with my husband/family/friends over July 4th holiday and then organized all aspects of my life to prepare for the next few months of studying for October PE exam.  

Overall my schedule was that  I studied every week night about 4 hours and all day on Saturdays.   I took Friday/Saturday after 5pm and Sundays (all day) completely off to spend time with my husband and family.  I used two weeks of personal vacation time before the test in October.    Here's what worked for me:1. Based on the work I've done daily, as well as the subjects I've studied in Grad school, I knew in advance that I would be taking the Thermal/Fluids. Decide what afternoon session you want to take and focus on that. Do not waste time trying to master all three major disciplines.

2. Once I applied and got my letter of approval, I purchased the MERM, Thermal/Fluids Six Minute Solutions, NCEES 2008 practice exam, and NCEES 2001 practice exam. The 2008 exam was updated in 2011. The actual content is the same. The 2008 exam contained all three disciplines. The 2011 book simply split them apart and sold them individually. The NCEES 2001 exam is very difficult to get hold of but well worth the effort and money.

Agreed - these might be the only books that you need.  I purchased other books but did not really use them as much as I used the above.  I also took the School of PE class and used the written materials provided.  3. I prepped for this exam with the attitude that it was a one-or-none deal. I was only going to take this exam once. At the time I started prepping for the exam I had a one-year old son to deal with AND I was pursuing a second MS degree. Why am I telling you this? You need buy-in from your spouse/significant other. My wife and parents spent countless hours while I studied late into the night and all day on weekends.

This is critical.  My husband is also an engineer and extremely supportive.  With that said, I know he missed me a lot when I would put in my ear plugs, eat dinner at my desk every evening or be lost in thought about how much more I needed to study whenever we did go out.  It's very important to share with your spouse the demands and maybe even provide him/her with your study schedule.  Also, keep reminding him/her that you love them very much and appreciate all of their support.   4. I did not read the MERM. I skimmed through the MERM to get a general idea where the sections were located and what information was in the Appendix. 

Tried to read MERM for a refresher but was not able to get much out of that.  I skimmed MERM to learn where all the concepts/equations were located.  School of PE class provided a good refresher for those who need help with structure and reinforcing engineering knowledge.  

5. Copy the MERM appendix and have it bound separately. It will save you a lot of time during the exam and make it much easier during practice. It will also save the life-time of your MERM binding. Print and bind the Index also.

Agreed - you can get the index in pdf version from MERM website.  Appendix is not readily available so you will need to copy (or at least just your most frequently used pages) and have it bound seperately.  6. I began by working the Six Minute Solutions book. Do not be afraid to look at the answers if you get stuck the first time through. As I was working the SMS, I would find the formulas in the MERM and highlight them AND record them in my notes. If I didn't have a clue how to work the question, I would read the solution, find all the equations, and work through it using the solution. Highlight your equations in the MERM and in your notes for easy reference. I worked through the SMS 7 times before I got 100% correct under 8 hours. In fact, by the time I was at the end of my preparation, I was working through the SMS in about 4 hours and getting 100%. A lot of it at that point will seem like rote memorization, don't be scared of it. As you're working through the problems, read and understand the methodology. Work the problems over and over again.

I worked through SMS about 5 times.  I was never able to get to the point of getting 100% correct and skipped some problems that were too difficult.  SMS review really helped with reinforcing important concepts in a way that reading the MERM or participating in a class was not able to achieve.  Even if you can't work through the whole problem, just make sure you understand the methodology.  7. Once I completed the SMS, I moved on to the NCEES 2008/2011 exam. Again, I worked this using the same methodology as above. I got 100% correct, under 8 hours after my 5th attempt or so. Use the same method of writing down the equations you did not know and reading the methodology.

Same strategy, and I got up to 90% correct.  

8. Worked the NCEES 2001 exam using the same approach described in (6) and (7) above. You'll see a lot of posters saying keep an exam to test yourself the last week or so. I found that working as many problems as possible with as much time left to prep was the best strategy.

Agreed. Two weeks before the exam I was so anxious to know how I would do on problems that I haven't work before and took the Justin Kuawale exam for $35.  http://www.engproguides.com/thermalexam.html  I got a 71% on this practice exam 2 weeks before the PE exam

9. Now I moved on to the MERM. I worked all the main sections noted on the NCEES breakdown. Skip the math, project management, plant engineering, statics etc. I worked the Fluids, Heat Transfer, Thermo, HVAC, Machine Design sections. I did NOT work any of the 1-hour time limit problems. I was able to work all the problems in those sections twice. Do not be afraid if you get stuck and need to read through the solutions.

I really struggled with the MERM problems.  I purchased these to review during my vacation in the last 2 weeks.  I was extremely nervous about how I could perform on the actual PE exam when I was working these problems.  These problems are designed to be harder, and they're useful for reinforcing concepts.  10. By this time, I had approximately 10 days left before the exam. I worked the SMS and each of the NCEES exams the first three days. I re-worked the MERM problems in the Fluid, Heat Transfer, and Thermo sections.

Reworked SMS, NCEEES exams.  Skimmed MERM problems once.  

11. I went through the MERM, using the notes that I made as I studied (here's where the highlighting comes in handy) and tabbed what I felt was important. At this point I knew the MERM and the bound appendix intimately so I didn't feel the need to tab that much. I certainly tabbed the major sections of the MERM and a few diagrams. Follow the now famous Shaggy tabbing method on this site.

I had a special 1 inch binder with all of my most commonly used notes, FE review manual notes, school notes, 11x14 Mollier Chart, 11x14 coolerado psychrometric chart12. I took Thursday (the day before the exam) off. I was up early (normal time I leave for work 0500) and did one run through of the SMS, NCEES 2008, and NCEES 2011. I drove to the exam site and ensured I knew where the building was. Then I drove home and packed my bag. I took a back-pack. I took the MERM, the MERM appendix I bound, Steam Tables, Lindeburg conversion book, sample exams, 2 calculators, and ear-plugs. I put my money, approval letter, and ID cards in a zip lock bag. Then I did absolutely nothing exam related the rest of the day. I took my son to play-time, watched a few movies etc.

I studied until about 3 pm the day before the exam because I still had more material to cover.  13. Exam day I was up early and went to the site. I finished both sections (AM and PM) with over an hour to spare. I did NOT go through and rate questions etc. I simply worked the questions in order. If I didn't feel satisfied with an answer, or if I had to guess, I put a mark next to it and moved on. At the end, I came back and re-worked the questions I had doubts on. I still left the exam room very early both sessions. I felt that leaving the AM session early and giving myself extra time for lunch allowed me to clear my head and prep for the PM session.

I worked up until the last minute of the test.  

14. Went through the now well known process of self-doubt and anger at the lack of timely results.

Agreed!  There is another thread that you should check out after the test that is dedicated to this.  15. Got my results today. Wrote this up as a thank you EB for your help and support. Thanked EB financially on getting the good news.

THANK YOU all again!  

Feel free to ask any questions and best of luck prepping for April 2015.

 
Passed TFS October 2017.  I finished undergrad in 2010 and have been working in power generation facilities ever since.  I've worked in coal-fired plants and simple cycle and combined cycle combustion turbine facilities.  I don't do real design work and don't do a lot of calculations.  Here's what worked for me:

  • I started studying in late July and I studied for a couple hours after work Mon-Thurs.  I tried to do 4-6 hours on Friday and Saturday.  No studying on Sundays.  I kept this up pretty well through August and most of September, but I was feeling pretty good and slacked off in October.  Towards the end, I was only getting a few hours a week done.  We had a shutdown at work the week before the exam, so I didn't get much studying done that week.  I did take the day before the exam off and studied for about 8 hours.
  • The first thing I did was go through the Eng Pro Guides study guide and worked the practice problems in it.
  • I worked through 6MS once over the course of several study sessions, but I don't think it helped me much.  Personally, I wouldn't work through this book more than twice.
  • I worked the Eng Pro Guides practice test something like 6 times.  The first time through, if I didn't know what to do, I'd go look at the solution, find the applicable material in the MERM, read it, understand it, tab it, highlight it, etc.  I did not worry about how much time this took.  The first time through probably took me a total of 20+ hours because I was learning the topics as I went along.  Each time through I would add tabs and highlighting if necessary.  By the second or third time through, I knew right where to go in the MERM for each question.  Eventually I got where I could work all 80 problems in about 4 hours.  I would just sit down and work 40 problems straight through and call it a session.
  • I worked the 2011 NCEES practice exam about 6 times as well in the same manner.
  • I saved the 2016 NCEES practice exam until October and worked it twice.  The first time through, I treated it as a mock exam.  There were only a few questions I didn't feel good about and I was well within the time limit.  At this point, I felt like I could pass.  I worked through it again for good measure.
  • I did not work any problems from the MERM.
  • In my studies, I only opened my college Thermo book a few times.  I lost the rest of my college textbooks due to water damage several years ago, but didn't feel like I really needed them.  There were a few times I wish I'd had my Fluids book and my Heat Transfer book, but I made it through with the MERM and Google.
  • I took my tabbed MERM, Keenan steam tables, some SI steam tables I printed and put in a binder, the unit conversion book, Crane TP-410, and a binder with a few copies of an 11x17 psych chart and a hand-written cheat sheet I made with the conversions and formulas I found myself using very frequently during my studies.  I used everything except Crane 410 during the test.
  • In the morning, I worked through all the problems I knew how to do and skipped a handful.  I went through that handful two times and on all the quantitative problems I at least got a number that was a choice.  There were one or two qualitative questions that I had to spend some time thinking about, but I came to answers I felt good about on them.  I didn't have to make random guesses on anything and I left with about 45 mins left in the morning session.
  • The afternoon was pretty much the same.  Went through the questions I skipped a few times and left with about 45-60 mins to go.  Didn't randomly guess on anything and got one of the choices for every quantitative problem.
I think the number one best piece of advice I can give is to not just learn the solutions to the practice problems.  Learn the theory behind the formulas instead of just learning a "cookbook recipe" to get an answer.  Understand why you're using a specific approach or formula.  I think that as long as you take this approach, then you'll be ok spending the majority of your study time working and re-working practice tests.

I appreciate everyone posting what worked for them.  It really helped me to make the best use of my study time.  Hope this helps someone.

 
I did passed TFS in October. Thanks everyone for the help, support and encouragement from Forum. I am out of school more than 10 years and I spent around 350-400 hours for the PE test. I exactly followed the study strategy from Ramnares P.E



the material I used:

  • MERM (read all TFS sections based on NCESS's specification)
  • TFS 6 SMS (did 5 or 6 times)
  • Practice problems for the mechanical engineering PE exam (only TFS section based on NCESS's specification)
  • Practice exam from NCEES (did 3 or 4 times)
  • Practice exam from Eng pro guides (final mock exam within 8 hours)
  • Unit conversion book
I hope helps. let me know if you have any question.

 
Hello everyone!

I plan on taking the April 2018 exam in Minnesota.

I have noticed for nearly all of the recommendations that rarely anyone mentions the example problems found in the MERM. Are these example problems good practice for understanding theory or is it well accepted that they aren't worth anyone's time?

Cheers!

 
Would anyone recommend the PPI course work? Curious as it is very expensive.

 
Hello everyone!

I plan on taking the April 2018 exam in Minnesota.

I have noticed for nearly all of the recommendations that rarely anyone mentions the example problems found in the MERM. Are these example problems good practice for understanding theory or is it well accepted that they aren't worth anyone's time?

Cheers!
These examples are excellent and they'll help you grasp the topics better. They aren't as difficult as the MERM's companion book's problems but they are good to start with.

 

Latest posts

Back
Top